


Kitten Snapchat Filters Have More Fun

by gingercinderella



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Kent "Parse" Parson Positive, Las Vegas Aces, Las Vegas Aces OCs, M/M, a "well what the fuck do you do when you graduate" fic that the world needs, not that there's a smack of realism to this bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24191476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingercinderella/pseuds/gingercinderella
Summary: Justin graduates and ends up with a job across the country in Vegas.He just happens to meet Kent Parson and some Aces playing around at a rink.And he just happens to become friends with them.And just happens to take flirty snapchat selfies with the cute one.
Relationships: Justin "Ransom" Oluransi/Kent "Parse" Parson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	1. Everybody's Working for the Wednesday

Ransom arrived in Vegas on a Tuesday morning after a godawful early flight. The fact that the new lab was covering most moving expenses was nice. The lab booking him at a flight that left Toronto at 4:35 am was… less nice.

After a disastrous finals week the fall semester of senior year, he’d finally given up on post grad degrees. He deserved better than doing that to himself for another 2, 4, 8 years. The job market for a bio major was “wide open” until he’d started looking and found… nothing.

Yes Materials Corp & Associates had been a godsend, more or less. Great starting pay, moving expenses, a 401k, and his Skype interviewer had even played D2 hockey in college; it gave him a leg up that Justin thought he’d earned after 4 years of working his ass off.

But it took him thousands of miles away from Boston and everyone he knew, and it started ten days after graduation.

He’d be fine.

He was exhausted but found the hotel, called his work line to let them know he was there.

Three weeks later, he found the rink with a quick google search.

He liked his job, more or less. Being a lab tech was exactly what he thought it would be for the largest family owned plastics manufacturer in the state of Nevada.

But shit, he needed excitement in his life and his moving truck had arrived and he’d finally unpacked enough boxes in his dingy one bedroom to find his skates.

He had Wednesdays off instead of Saturdays, so he expected the rink would be fairly empty at noon on a weekday. The assumption wasn’t too incorrect, he was only competing for space with a few high schoolers moving in packs, two gaggles of giggling middle school girls, and a few guys who looked like they knew what they were doing. 

Justin kept his eyes down as he warmed up, stretching as he skated, practicing speeding up and stopping. Shit, he needed to get in a better gym schedule, his legs felt like they hadn’t stretched properly in ages.

“Race ya,” someone said, skating past him- one of the dudes who knew what he was doing- and Justin didn’t hesitate to speed the fuck up. They weren’t going anywhere, just going around the loop, but it became clear fast that he’d lost. His opponent stopped and turned, fist bumping him when Justin got close enough for them to skate along leisurely together. “Gave me a run for my money, there,” the man said. It was a lie, but he smiled and accepted the compliment all the same. He’d at least kept up. “I’m Dean, that’s Jeff and that’s Kent,” he said, waving at his companions who were on the other side of the loop, shoving eachother and laughing about something like the high schoolers.

Justin raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment on the fact that yeah, he knew who Kent Parson and Jeff Troy were. “Nice to meet ya. I’m Justin.”

Someone poked their head into the rink. “Swoops! Parse! Mickey!” He called, and Justin turned to look as his companion smiled wider. “C’mon!”

“Gotta go,” Dean said, speeding up to make his way around the loop back to the exit, and Justin kept up. “We skate on the other rink- we just were warming up here,” he explained. “But thanks!”

Dean got out at the exit, Jeff and Kent already gone, and Justin kept going around and around.

That night, he searched and found that Dean McCoy was new on the Aces, a promising rookie out of a D2 Hockey team that Justin had never heard of.

The next week, he went at the same time and Dean skated by, offering to race him again. When the man - Gary Hatfield, he’d figured out - poked his head in to call them to the other rink, Dean asked if he wanted to join, since they were down one.

He had his ass handed to him within the first ten minutes, but he kept going. It wasn’t a particularly competitive game, 3-on-3, but it was still five pros plus him. He was on a team with Dean and Feelsy (Hatfield could have been made into better nicknames but this guy  _ owned it _ and Justin respected that) and he and Dean were a good pair. They didn’t really have a fair fight against 3 pros who’d been playing together for years, but they would have been decent if they were playing against some of his old teammates..

“Good play, Ransom,” Kent said, and Justin startled at the nickname. He hadn’t brought it up. Kent’s smile was tight, like he was trying to figure something out, and that was fair. Justin didn’t know what the hell had happened between Kent and Jack and it wasn’t his job to know but he knew.. something.

Kent and Justin had taken selfies together at the kegster before Lardo had destroyed him at flip cup. They almost had a history between the pair of them.

“Thanks Kent,” he said, and offered his fist for a bump. It was perfectly normal, he’d do that to Swoops or Mittens, but here it was almost a truce. Some sort of tenuous olive branch.

The next week, Kent chirped him for his sloppy pass when they were on the same team, and Justin shot back about how he was still wearing his snapback on the ice.

The week after, Dean asked if he wanted to join them for lunch at the sandwich shop around the corner.

Two weeks after, Mittens asked if he wanted to come back to his place to play video games after lunch.

At the end of August, he hadn’t missed a single Wednesday on the ice since he’d met Dean in June, and he’d been going back to somebody’s apartment after lunch for video games and hanging out for a month.

Feelsy had even asked him if he wanted to go to the gym the last weekend, which he’d had to turn down because he worked all goddamn day Saturdays.

Adam didn’t believe it the first time he texted that he’d seen Kent and Jeff and some rookie at the rink, but the snapchat selfies of Justin and Dean with the dog filter, every week, went a long way to getting Holster to believe.

He’d managed to convince Kent to take a selfie with him too, Kent insisting on the one with the cat ears, the day they’d gone back to his condo for games, the pair of them squished on a chair that was somewhere between roomy-one-seater and cozy-loveseat. Justin hadn’t sent that one to Adam, but had saved it to his phone. It seemed.. oddly personal.

After the first game, Kent had relaxed around him, and was just as playful on the ice with Justin as he was with Jeff or Feelsy or Mittens. Kent and Dean were still stiff and formal around eachother, which tracked since they’d met that summer. But Kent hadn’t  _ actually  _ met him til this summer, either, and the pair of them were (gently, kindly) tackling eachother on the ice and laughing in a heap on the floor of people’s living rooms when they tackled one or the other for winning.

Dean had a pout on his thin lips when he mentioned during their warm-up skate around the rink that this was their last week before training camp started. 

“See ya next summer, huh?” Justin joked.

“As if you could get out of seeing us that easy!” Jeff called.

Mittens invited him to a kick back that Saturday, and Jeff’s wife invited him to brunch with their family- Jeff, Lorraine, her sister, and the sister’s kids- on Sunday. Kent was at the brunch and when Lorraine’s sister started complaining about some guy Justin had never heard of, Kent dragged him to the kids table for a definitely more fun conversation.

_ Want to come over tomorrow?  _ Kent texted him that Wednesday.  _ Weird not seeing you today lol _

_ Yeah definitely, who else is coming? _

_ Just us.  _ There was a pause.  _ If that’s okay. _

Justin thought back to the selfies with Kent, their shoulders rubbing against each other comfortably, or squishing into chairs at the end of the kids table, their knees knocking together.

_ Sounds swawsome. _


	2. Chapter 2

Justin had been here what, twice before? 

Kent could remember how he’d looked around the place with wide eyes, like he couldn’t believe the view.

It was pretty fucking sweet, and he kept that fact off of his socials. (Justin followed him, Kent had checked, when Mickey had convinced the guy to give out his handle. The guy’s insta was private, and cute.)

But this was- well, this wasn’t inviting the guys over for Halo and ordering taco bell off of grub hub. (Or, closer to the season starting, nutritionist-approved chicken breast and potatoes and veggies from the healthy place down the block.)

This was closer to a date.

He hustled to clean up the place. He didn’t let it get gross, per se, but his shirt was still on the floor where he’d pulled it off as soon as he’d gotten home from his first practice of the season, and hadn’t had the energy to move it again. Kit’s living room litter box needed scooping. The drying rack next to his sink was full of dishes needing to be put away. He wouldn’t have worried if this was Mickey or Feelsy or Swoops.

It mattered, for Justin.

He rung up the man around 6. He’d gotten used to the man’s work schedule, he got off at 5, that was normal, right? Justin didn’t answer back in the group chat except during his lunch and when he got off. It wasn’t like Kent paid attention, he just didn’t expect Justin to react to Dean’s dumb memes or his latest Kit pictures til then.

“Hey,” Justin said when Kent opened the door, and pushed in and towards the kitchen, putting down his large brown paper bag. “I got Tanya’s, hope you didn’t plan anything else, just figured we wouldn’t want to deal with it once I was here. More time for me to crush you.” Justin’s smile was easy, and Kent answered in kind. His usual order was there, teriyaki chicken with roast potatoes and asparagus.

Justin left that day without fanfare, no goodbye kiss or anything close to one, but Kent hugged Kit close afterwards, and she looked up and was maybe surprised that he was smiling. Usually, he'd hug her and his face would be blank as he smooshed it into her fur, but now he was watching a grey sedan drive out of the building's underground garage, grinning ear to ear.

The third time Justin came over, he didn’t worry so much about his place being perfect.

He could see the place in any condition, honestly. He chucked the wayward socks back into his bedroom, and made sure Kit’s box was tidied, but that was it. Justin could see his place like he left it.

On opposite sides of the big navy sectional, Kent very specifically didn’t glance over when they watched  _ Big Trouble in Little China _ , his favorite movie growing up, to see how Justin reacted. When they got an appetizer to split- Cheesecake Factory’s avocado toast was amazing, and too miuch for one person- they’d huddle in close over the coffee table, their shoulders nudging when they reached in for another little slice, but once the tray was empty, they’d retreat to their respective corners with their entrees.

Maybe it was a flirt, maybe it was a quiet agreement not to flirt, and maybe it was just something that Kent was reading far, far too much into. He didn’t mind. It was nice.

He was okay with nice things in his life.

Mickey invited Justin to the first game, when the three of them met up at the gym the Sunday before the game.

Mickey and Justin had been going to the gym together the last two weekends and no, Kent didn’t feel a flash of jealousy about that. It would be ridiculous. He didn’t have any claim on either of them, and certainly not Justin. He should just be glad that one of the rookies was putting in good, regular workouts, if Justin’s snaps were anything to go by.

Justin was strong. His preference for all-black shoes, like the black skates or black converse or black nike slides, unsurprisingly extended to black workout shoes, and Kent couldn’t help but notice because it was leg day, apparently, and Justin’s legs were.

Nice.

They were nice.

His ass was nice.

Kent was better at not looking than this, he reminded himself, and headed off to the cardio machines.

“Dean’s having us over for tacos after this,” Justin told him, standing at the head of Kent’s treadmill. “I can drive.” 

Kent liked that it was a foregone conclusion that he’d be there, and that Justin knew that he would have walked here. It was his gym too, picked since it was close to the apartment he’d been in for years. Mickey had asked for a recommendation, and then kept bringing Justin as his plus one, since Kent doubted that whatever entry level lab job the recent grad had could pay for the monthly dues. The price still gave Kent, with a multi-million dollar contract, a slight heart jolt when it appeared on his credit card bill.

Mickey’s place was smaller than his, and not the top floor, but it was cozy inside and had the vibes of being decorated by his college girlfriend. When Kent chirped him over the handpainted canvas with hearts connecting Las Vegas and Cincinnati on a map, Mickey smiled back and blushed but didn’t look embarrassed.

“Aw, don’t, I’ve been here when Therese facetimes him. She’s not half as sappy as the painting seems,” Justin answered, scooting closer on the couch to give him a playful shove.

There was another quick flash of jealousy that Mickey and him were that close, that he’d picked up the call and introduced his girlfriend to Justin, but Kent pushed it aside. He wasn’t seventeen anymore. He’d learned somewhere along the way to share. 

Jack would laugh, if he heard Kent say something like that. Kent had been bad at sharing. The thought took the air out of his lungs and he shrank into himself on the couch, but not away from Justin. Maybe even a little towards him. Perhaps.

He didn’t have much to say after that, and was worse at Halo than usual and didn’t yell in anguish with Justin when Mickey won for the first time since they’d met.

“You okay?” Justin asked, once they’d said goodbye to Mickey and were heading back to the car. “You seem off.”

“First game jitters,” Kent answered, flashing the media smile that dazzled the press and got girls to swoon and usually got people to get off his back.

Justin squinted at him but nodded. 

The way back to his apartment was quiet, Kent leaning back and looking out the window.

“Want me to come up?” Justin asked.

Kent nodded, and by the time they got up there, he’d hyped himself up for small talk and more Halo but Justin turned on an episode of 30 Rock and sat on Kent’s side of the couch and Kent didn’t think too hard, just sat next to him and leaned and Justin put his arm around him.

He must have fallen asleep, because when he woke he was curled up alone on the couch, and Justin had texted him that he had an early next day. His usual order from Tanya’s was in the fridge. 

_ Thanks  _ he texted.

He got a thumbs up from Justin.

_ Anytime  _

After a beat, another text came through.  _ You’ll do amazing this weekend _

Kent scored two goals and they won the game and when the game finished, he scanned the crowd for Justin the way Jeff next to him was looking for Lorraine. 

He was there in an Aces jersey, way up in the stands, waving his arms and screaming. He waved back.

Kent could skate off the ice then, hiding a little smile. He went through the motions of the presser, said the normal things, his phone burning a hole in the pocket of his slacks.

_ want me to come _ _over_ a text read.

_yeah, bring ihop? I could use some pancakes and bacon_ he'd answered.

He just wanted to get home.

**Author's Note:**

> What are 3 terrible hockey nicknames? Definitely the ones i came up with and i’m proud of that  
> Fun fact: D2 Hockey no longer exists  
> Does he work at the YYYYYY - M - C - A? Well sure, it’s fun to work at the YYYYY - M - C - A 🎵


End file.
